


Everything's done that must be done

by Elster



Series: Magic and Loss [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Gen, Halward Pavus' A+ Parenting, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-09-02 10:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8663593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elster/pseuds/Elster
Summary: Dorian has been trying to escape for over ten years. It's not easy when you don't know where to run and life is getting in the way.Edited 2017-05-16 to split into chapters, fix mistakes, make minor changes to the text and add breaks.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It seems everything's done that must be done  
> From over here, though things don't seem fair  
> But there are things that we can't know  
> Maybe there's something over there  
> Some other world that we don't know about  
> I know you hate that mystic shit  
> It's just another way of seeing  
> The sword of Damocles above your head
> 
> Lou Reed - Sword of Damocles

“I cannot understand why you would do any of it,” Dorian’s father would say, and Dorian would only look at him mutetly, and wouldn’t understand either, any of it. Or maybe he’d just think that his father had no heart, that he didn’t know this man at all. His father used to look at him with pride, even when Dorian was rash and temperamental. That seemed so long ago now. As if it had always been like this: Dorian the disappointment, Dorian the failure. Dorian, carefully pruned for years, like the perfect topiary bushes in the garden, and still turning out the wrong shape, unfit for presentation.  
“I don’t enjoy seeing you like this,” his father would say, and Dorian would have said: “Then help me, please!” But it was already too late. That moment had come and gone a dozen times, and the last time had been years ago. Some things could not be fixed.

 

And before that:  
“We learn that faith is for the poor and powerless, the lost and helpless,” Felix had said once in one of his philosophical moments, when it was late at night, and he couldn’t sleep for the pain. “Andraste, the Maker, they are not as real to us, more like symbols, stories we like to tell ourselves and change as we see fit, religious service no more than an empty gesture. We see ourselves above all this, almost gods in our own right, but that’s a lie.” Dorian had sat with him as he had during so many endless nights, and there was nothing he could say, so he only stared into the darkness, exhausted and afraid, lost and helpless. Faith was for him if it would find him, but the only thing he felt was how everything, Felix, the world, his own body, inexorably crumbled to dust. And Felix was right: To Dorian there was no hope, no comfort. But he told himself that, no matter what, he would not run from this; that he would do this one thing right and stay until the end. 

 

And in between:  
“It could work,” Alexius had insisted, for the third time then, and Dorian had just shook his head, nothing left to say he hadn’t said twice already. “You won’t even look at it! Together we can control it, nothing can go wrong.“  
“Famous last words,” Dorian had answered, hiding behind glibness, but unsettled by the sheer madness of the plan Alexius had come up with, by the desperate gleam in his eyes, and all the more cutting for it. “If you think I will contemplate this harebrained idea even one moment-“  
“Dorian, please.”

 

Temptation, Dorian thought. It would be so easy to say yes. It would feel so good when being good felt so terrible. “I won’t do it, I’m sorry.”  
“You can’t just give up like this. Give him up. How can you?” Alexius was crying now, looking old and frail, looking disappointed. Looking like Dorian’s father through the guilt and shame and a stubborn righteous anger that screamed: ‘This is not my fault! How am I supposed to fix this? What am I supposed to do?’ But as with his father, that scream was only in his head, never voiced. There was duty and responsibility and no room for failure. Selfish Dorian, ungrateful Dorian.

 

~*~

 

But Dorian was grateful. He’d tried. He’d tried so hard from the first moment his father’s disappointed gaze had cut into him like knives. But trying didn’t count. Success counted. And Dorian was a failure. 

 

When Alexius had taken him in he’d said: “The most important thing is that you don’t let yourself down. What do you think lies down that path, spending all your days in houses like this, drunk out of your skull? What a waste of such a brilliant mind.” Dorian had felt like he could breathe for the first time in weeks, like a drowning man being dragged above the water when he’d stopped believing there was light and air anywhere in the world. 

 

Alexius had said: “Don’t think about it for now, concentrate on something else and give it time.” Dorian had done so and it had helped; the relationship with his father strained, but not beyond repair. He hadn’t been twenty yet, and he knew all it meant was: Give it time and you will see that you’ve been wrong, that you can be what they want you to be. Dorian hoped so. He didn’t believe, but he hoped. 

 

Dorian distracted himself with being brilliant in his studies, charming at social gatherings, falling in love only with men who were utterly unattainable and thus save. 

 

With taking Felix under his wing, who was a gangly and naive child to Dorian’s adolescent world-weariness and badgered him to spend time together until they were friends. Dorian had never had a friend like that. A friend who was his friend just because he liked him, no ulterior motives, just honest admiration and kindness. 

 

Dorian hadn’t invited that kind of friendship when he had been younger, hadn’t been particularly approachable, an aloof little show-off more often than not. The loss of his father’s pride in him had left him shaken, the thoughtless arrogance, the effortless superiority of his childhood only an ill-fitting mask over his tattered self-confidence. He was thirsty for kindness.

 

Felix was not as handsome as Dorian, nor as brilliant, nor as talented, or at least Felix thought so, and so did most people. Dorian thought other people were fools. He couldn’t have been more proud of Felix had he been Archon.  
For a while Dorian could pretend that this was his family now: Gereon, Felix and Livia. For a while House Pavus didn’t exist.

 

~*~

 

“Why Necromancy?” Felix asked, long before his illness. He and Dorian were not yet friends, at least by Dorian’s estimate. Felix was perching on a chair in Dorian’s room, balancing it on two legs, his fingers absentmindedly picking at the seams of his clothes. Never sitting still this one, Dorian thought, exasperated with that child as he often was then. The four years age difference could as well have been forty the way Felix was carrying on. Dorian couldn’t remember ever being that… unpolished maybe. Felix’ black hair seemed to be growing every which way, coarse and stubborn, his clothes were a mess and he couldn’t seem to carry himself with dignity, either slouching or basically vibrating on the edge of his seat like an eager puppy. Dorian had certainly never been that guileless or openly curious or blatantly admiring. Maybe that soft-faced and big-eyed, though he doubted it. 

 

“Dorian?”  
Dorian sniffed. “Necromancy is an ancient and respected-“  
“Yes, but why? Did you always have an interest?”  
“I- yes. I always thought it was interesting.” 

 

In fact, Dorian had been scared of it. It was eerie and bleak, and more often than not downright disgusting. Necromancy didn’t have the same tradition in Tevinter as it had in Nevarra. Whatever branches of the Mortalitasi there might have been outside of the city state in Tevinter’s grand past was long since forgotten. Today, the field was of a more academic interest to few. The fact that the mages most accomplished in it were part of a secretive order made learning it difficult and the fact that they were Nevarran meant many Tevinters looked down on the whole school of magic on principle. Scary, difficult and not as respected as Dorian would always claim - all of it apparently the perfect mix of reasons for Dorian to study it. 

 

“Why?” Felix asked as if he was five and only just discovering the joy of repeating the question over and over. “I think the souls crossing over into the fade part is interesting, considering we don’t know what a soul is or what the fade is,” Felix added. And maybe he had a point, so what? “Not sure about the reanimated corpses though. That’s creepy, I don’t think I could ever do that.” Felix scrunched up his nose. He looked ridiculous.

 

Dorian only shrugged, he had better things to do than discussing the validity of his chosen field of studies with an annoying child. And no good answer at hand or at least none he wanted to share. As Dorian understood it there were people who, standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down into the depth below, did not feel the overwhelming urge to jump, figuratively speaking of course. Dorian envied those people. How easy life must be for them.

 

~*~

 

Studying everything about Necromancy that was known in Tevinter had taken Dorian years. Despite his dedication he never practiced it on anything bigger than whatever unfortunate animal the cats would drag in. The time magic had come after that, a field even more theoretical and, some would say, useless. In pursuing it, Dorian had finally fallen in line with Alexius’ own current research. Gereon’s main focus for years had been the manipulation of the laws of physics, a field, he lamented often, with many possible applications, but sadly neglected in favor of the more flashy primal school.

 

In terms of raw power Felix was mediocre at best, and it made many of his teachers dismiss him as talentless. Felix didn’t care. He didn’t care about the showy, mana-intensive spells everyone in Tevinter was most proud of. So what if he couldn’t do them, he’d just find something else to excel at. Dorian had soon found out that in his own way, Felix was no less inspired than his father when it came to magic, it was just that in contrast to Gereon he didn’t have any interest in practical applications. It was a game to him, the limits of the possible only a puzzle to solve.

 

“You see?” he’d ask, showing a new trick he’d learned to Dorian, anxious for approval.  
Dorian would look at the tiny drop of water at the tip of Felix’ finger and watch as it shaped a perfect crystal, melted again, then froze once more in a different shape, perfectly symmetrical. It wasn’t very impressive at first glance, but Dorian couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone do something comparable. “I do. Can you control the shape it takes?”

 

“Yes. It’s difficult though. There are so many possible shapes. You have to really think about how it should grow, otherwise it will find its own way and it grows very fast.”  
“Still slower than most other mages manage. They just get ice, I’ve never seen someone make a snowflake.”  
“You have to control every tiny part of it, not just cool it. Just freezing things is much easier.”

 

Dorian glanced up from the snowflake that had melted back to a drop of water. “Then why snowflakes?”  
Felix looked down at his finger, a new shape, lacey and quadratic. “They’re beautiful, don’t you think? And I like how it’s the same drop of water, but I can make it look different every time.”  
“It’s amazing,” Dorian said with a smile and Felix beamed at him. He then tried to show Dorian how to make veilfire glow in different colors.   
It took Dorian years of intermittent trying to get the hang of that. He never managed to create even a single snowflake, no matter how hard he tried.

 

~*~

 

A broad promenade was leading from the military harbour of Minrathous straight to the Eastern Gate of the inner city wall. Lined by the best restaurants and shops and shadowed by high plane trees it was a meeting place for everybody who could spare the time to sit down on the benches or in the soft grass between the two busy lanes. A row of silverite archons on marble pedestals looked east towards the sea, surrounded by small fountains, bushy figs, sweet smelling orange trees and oleander, the rough bark and slender foliage of olives. The rich would go there to watch and show off whatever they had, be it finery, allies, heirs, spouses or exotic slaves. Dorian and Felix both had their studies, but they’d often meet there at noon when it was hot and the bustle of the city calmed down for a few hours. 

 

Dorian was sitting in the shadow of a tree and dozing, lulled by the combined drone of voices, gurgling of water and the mind-numbing rattling of cicadas. Felix, who had grown from Dorian’s lankier, more awkward shadow into something forceful and bright and still defiantly unpolished, had lost most of his clothes and did exercises until sweat was running down his chest and everyone was staring. It was all very gauche, but Dorian couldn’t fault its effectiveness. There were several groups of young women who would pass by, sneaking glances, giggling and blushing, only to turn around some hundred feet further and casually pass by again on the other side. Felix would pretend not to notice them, and instead continued to swirl his staff around his arms and shoulders like some street performer. 

 

“There’s a time and a place for that kind of thing,” Dorian would quip at some point, demonstratively peering into the foliage above him instead of looking at Felix. “It’s after sundown and… I wish I knew where.”  
Felix threw him a toothy smile and inelegantly flopped down next to him in the grass. “Don’t tell me exercise in the midday sun will give me a stroke.”  
“You? Unlikely. Everybody else?” Dorian trailed off.

 

Felix stretched and jostled Dorian until he elbowed him to make him stop. “It’s all part of my masterplan to make Juturna regret turning me down.” Felix finally settled down with his arms crossed behind his head. “Why would you think I would dance with you?” he said in a high-pitched nasal voice, “You’re mother’s Laetan, isn’t she?”  
“She’s a snob,” Dorian agreed.  
“So, on the next dance, I will dance with every girl but her.”  
“Your feet will bleed.”  
“We all must offer our sacrifices to the gods of petty revenge.”  
“I suppose. I’m torn. Should I attend? On the one hand, you will probably need someone to carry you home, on the other hand, I might be bored to death.”  
“On the one hand, you really should come for moral support if nothing else, on the other hand, you can talk to other people for your entertainment, on the third hand, I’m way ahead of you in the carrying home department.”  
“Ew, other people.”

 

~*~

 

Felix had asked: “Why don’t you want to marry Livia?”  
And Dorian had stared at him aghast. “Felix! What did I do to you?”  
“She’s not so bad.”  
“That’s not the point.”  
“Then what is?”

 

Dorian narrowed his eyes. “What are we talking about here? Just so you know, there’s no really good way to start this conversation, but bringing up my fiancée is probably the worst. So I repeat my question: Was it anything I said?”  
Felix made an unhappy noise. “It’s nothing. I mean… Maker, that’s even worse.” He trailed off. “I’m worried about you.”  
“That’s great,” Dorian said acerbically, “but I get enough of that from my father, so spare me.”

 

“People have been warning me about you.”  
Dorian’s face went blank. “Oh?” he said, and then “Not-” Dorian swallowed.  
Felix touched a hand to his shoulder in a gesture of apology. “My parents? Goodness, no, they adore you.” Felix took a deep breath, then said: “Nobody important, really, I just tell them to mind their own business. But I’m not stupid, you know. It’s not like that, but you are… well…” Felix trailed off, obviously looking for the right words, before he settled on “not that subtle. Which is why I worry.”

 

Dorian still looked tense, like he was ready to run or take a blow or set Felix on fire, depending on what other awful things Felix could say to him.  
“Because it’s not safe,” Felix said, and cringing at his own words hurried on. “I mean, you’re you: good family, good looking, absurdly talented. People think you’re perfect. And arrogant. And going places. They’re envious and they hate you and you just- well, you just give them a reason and a weapon all in one and… it worries me.”

 

When Felix looked at him he thought Dorian didn’t look quite like himself, he looked older and more serious than he usually did. “Do you honestly think I don’t know that?”  
“Then why don’t you-”  
“What? Marry Livia? Lie to her?”  
“I think she knows.”

 

Dorian made a dismissive gesture. “And what would be the point? Having someone I can point at when people make allegations that are absolutely true? As if that would change anything. Producing an heir? So my parents can finally stop regretting all the choices they ever made because at least that turned out as it was supposed to? I don’t even want to think about it. Lying to everyone? Hiding? Maybe even lie to myself? Being trapped in this lie for the rest of my life? Believe me, I know enough people who live like that. You do it long enough and keeping the secret becomes all you are, all you ever think about. I certainly don’t plan to become that boring. Or that unhappy.”

 

Felix blinked in the wake of this rant. “Well… you obviously thought about that. A lot.”  
Dorian exhaled a short, bitter “Ha!”


	2. Chapter 2

In later years, in a future Dorian hadn’t believed in for the longest time, he often thought that it would have ended anyway. But for it to end in the worst possible way was just Dorian’s luck. First it was a shock, Livia dead, Felix fighting the blight. There was so little tragedy among the Alti that they didn’t bring upon each other. For once, everybody’s condolences had been heartfelt. Then Felix had survived, borrowed time, but time anyway, and everything had gone back to normal. Everybody knew, but they either acted like nothing was wrong or like Felix had already died and they’d just ignore his silly unawareness of when to gracefully bow out.

 

Gereon sacrificed everything, his wealth, his position in the circle, his seat in the Magisterium, every bit of goodwill of his friends and allies. Just to win some time. Dorian did the same. He didn’t have quite as much to sacrifice, but what he had, he gave up. 

 

That was when the future, this narrow, stifling tunnel that stretched before him, stopped existing. There was just an endless row of days, some good, some bad. 

 

Dorian lost track of time, he felt caught in this moment like he had been during those weeks after his father had found out and confronted him. When Dorian had been drunk on a barstool or sick in a corner of a room full of people, most of them taking care not to fall over or step on his legs that stuck out into the way. When he had been hung over in the arms of whoever had been kind enough to give him a smile the night before. There was no time, just a collection of moments and gaps that somehow added up to days and weeks. 

 

Now Dorian felt numb and exhausted when he drank with Alexius, who would cry and talk of Livia, then make plans to save Felix that became ever more absurd and dangerous. Felt tired and feverish when he worked into the night to find a cure, find anything that would help. Felt helpless and scared whenever Felix had a bad day and would be sick and moaning from the pain in his guts and the pain in his back, and whatever else would hurt that day. And somehow all these moments added up to months, to a year, to ignoring the questions from the Circle about when he’d return to his actual work, the letters from his father, who thought this was a good time to remind him of his betrothal. They added up to single-minded devotion, to madness, until the only sane person left in the house was Tullia, the only slave Alexius hadn’t sold. 

 

She was calm, practical and silent, never bothering with words where a gesture or a raised eyebrow would suffice. One night Dorian talked at her while she was preparing food, after Felix was asleep in his bed and Alexius had locked himself in his office. Dorian didn’t expect a reaction, he just talked to help him think, talked about magic, things too complicated for a slave to understand, talked until he was hoarse and his words would slur and stumble. At some point she’d laid a hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eyes and he had trailed off, too surprised to go on at first and then suddenly too tired. “He’s going to die,” she said, her voice kind. “There is nothing you can do. You can stop.” Dorian should have been angry at her acting too familiar, but he was too sad and too relieved, and then too busy sobbing against her shoulder as she petted his hair and told him soothing meaningless things. 

 

Dorian slept through the night for the first time in weeks. The next day Tullia hadn’t even blinked as Dorian asked her to show him how to help take care of Felix. She had always been there, unfaltering and Dorian decided that was better than following Alexius down whatever path he was headed, so he did what she did, helping without hoping, doing what must be done, instead of wasting time on dreams. 

 

In the end there was nothing that could be gained, but this: Felix and Dorian, talking, making tasteless jokes, playing chess and card games, teaching themselves tactics and tricks and how to count cards and cheat in every way possible from smooth and cunning to hilariously obvious. They read books, the more terrible the better, and laughed at flowery prose and the pathos of historical accounts alike. 

 

After Felix told him he was glad that Dorian had started acting less crazy, he made a point of going out once a week, or at least every second week, ostensibly to make contact with the world outside. In reality he ended up drunk in the bed of strangers most of the time, sometimes only drunk and telling some poor bastard next to him at the bar everything that was wrong with the world. 

 

“Yeah, women, right?” one of them said one evening, some sailor from the looks of him, who had obviously not been listening at all and also didn’t give a shit. “I had this girl, said her brat was mine, swear I never saw her in my life. So I up and left.” The man on the other side of him nodded wisely at this and Dorian stared at both of them, not trying to hide that he found them both equally wanting intellectually. “Fuck you,” he enunciated as clearly as he was still able. “Both,” he added decisively after some deliberation. 

 

“What?” the sailor slurred. “I’m supposed to be sorry for you? Some fi-filthy rich toff slummin’ it because he has to marry some fancy lady.” Seems as if the sailor had listened after all, Dorian had just lost track of where exactly on his list of grievances he had been. Technically Dorian knew the man had a point. He punched him in the face anyway. The sailor punched right back, harder and better aimed, but stupid really, getting in a fight with an Altus. Some people tried to hold him back. When it became clear however that Dorian wouldn’t start throwing fire or lightning, but only very mediocre punches, they settled back down to enjoy the show. They threw him out on his ear when he started biting, and he sat slumped over in a corner in front of the bar and laughed himself silly about how ridiculous all of it was. Then he went home.

 

~*~

 

Felix pouted when Dorian told him of the betrothal of a girl Felix had courted. “She told me she loved me, but is she here now? No, gallivanting around with somebody else. She could have at least waited until I’m dead, would have been only decent.”  
“You should tell her,” Dorian answered, distracted by browsing the headlines of the newspaper. “But she’d probably point out that you just take indecently long to die.”  
He looked up from the newspaper and Felix grinned, wry and crooked, but with real humor. Dorian knew he was afraid as well, but most of the time he was so much calmer and braver than Dorian. “Indeed. Some days just never seem to end.” 

 

“I’ll miss you terribly,” Dorian said, just like that.  
“Oh don’t start,” Felix rolled his eyes.  
“No I’m serious,” Dorian said solemnly, “every day, for the rest of my life. Or maybe not every day, but at least once a week. I’ll think: Felix would have had some unbearably wiseass thing to say about this.”  
“As if you can talk.”  
“Learned from the best, didn’t I?”  
“I think you’re mistaken in who learned from whom here. You’re the one who, at Magister Flavius’ anniversary celebration, after that idiot Avitus drank himself under the table and everyone was staring, said ‘Well, at least he doesn’t have to look at these curtains any longer.’”  
Dorian had spoken that last sentence with him, but said. “Can’t have been me. I was much too drunk to be this witty.”

 

“It was you, I remember it because I was sober, and you only get worse the more you drink. Well, up to a point, then you get all maudlin and finally curl up like an overgrown cat and lose consciousness. You shouldn’t drink.”  
“Oh shush.”  
“Will you promise me something?” Felix asked.  
“Not that I stop drinking I hope. It’s my only comfort.”  
Felix turned up his mouth. “I wish you were joking. And no, I wouldn’t believe you anyway. Just. Don’t stay here. You’re really not cut out for playing things close to your chest. And you never know when to shut up. It’s like you want to hand everyone a knife to stab you in the heart before they have an opportunity to stab you in the back. You don’t deserve this, you know.”

 

“What? To be a Magister?” Dorian asked jokingly.  
Felix shook his head. “You don’t deserve to be hurt. It’s not right. You’re too good for that, Dorian, don’t believe anyone who says differently.”  
Later, in a future that didn’t exist then, too fantastical to be contemplated, Dorian would often ask himself why he’d chosen to believe his father over Felix, or if it had been a choice at all. Just some idle self-reflection for rainy days.

 

~*~

 

There were conversations they had over and over again, variation after variation, until everything was said and there was just one sentence left.   
“Goodnight,” starts with nightmares or Felix whispering “I’m afraid that if I fall asleep I’ll never wake up again,” when Dorian had been almost asleep, his body heavy and his thoughts calm. Continues like this: “We don’t have to go to sleep until the sun comes up,” spoken in a thick voice, blinking himself awake and still seeing nothing in the darkness. 

 

From there it spirals out into a game of “There are worse things than dying, Dorian.” Dorian could never remember how it started, that game, probably he was too tired to even know what he was saying. There are endless possibilities to turn it into light-hearted banter if you know how and Dorian was good at it, quite liked it in fact. He’d say things like “Being cursed with bad breath or unfortunate body odor,” or “Being forced to spend eternity in a debate about the correct way to hold a staff with Titus Quintinus.”   
“I don’t know,” Felix had said, “he wasn’t a bad instructor. And do you remember when I started with the innuendo and he was completely oblivious?”  
“Dear Felix, you have such a simple mind.”

 

Felix pursed his lips. “I wasn’t the one all red in the face and tearing up from trying so hard not to laugh.”  
The trick is to never think about the serious things. About the way the self splinters and shatters when it crosses the veil. And Felix would say: “Why think about it like that? Why not like this: You shed the things you won’t need anymore like a skin, like hair that’s grown too long.”   
The trick is not to think about being left alone.  
Goodnight meant goodbye when nights were long and dreams treacherous and you could never be sure you’d ever see each other again. 

 

~*~

 

For all that they were old friends, Gereon Alexius and Halward Pavus were very different men and moved in different circles. But still, in the end, Dorian disappointed Alexius as he had disappointed his father. There had been harsh words on both sides and Dorian had stormed out of the house, shaking from anger and unable to drag enough air into his lungs. He stood there just breathing until the blood rushing in his ears stopped drowning out the quiet sounds of the city at night. It was a good neighborhood, nothing more than crickets and nightingales after sundown, interrupted only by the occasional hushed conversation of people sitting in their garden or passing by on the street or by a barking dog. Nonetheless, it did little to calm Dorian, he still felt wound up and worried when Felix came out the house after him. 

 

“He’s not himself, you know that.” He talked quietly, gently, moving closer, but slowly as if a sudden movement would startle Dorian away.  
Maybe it would, he certainly felt like running, agitated and jittery. “He’s planning to actually use time magic now, did you hear that?”  
“I didn’t, but I’m not surprised. Neither are you.”  
“I’m sorry, I tried, Felix, but he won’t listen to me.”  
“It’s not your fault, if he won’t listen to me, why should he listen to you?”  
Dorian laughed bitterly. “Why indeed, I’m merely the only other expert in the field.”

 

“You know it’s not about that.”  
“No,” Dorian sighed. “Rather not. It’s about me being a coward, too weak, a false friend, a bad influence…” A vague rolling gesture of the hand, like he could go on or like it wasn’t worth mentioning the rest. It didn’t do a good job of distracting Felix from how he turned away his face, jaw clenched.  
“That’s not true,” Felix said simply. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry he said that.”  
Dorian shrugged. “I can’t stay here right now.”  
“Dorian.”  
“A day or two.”  
Felix said nothing, didn’t have to. Dorian knew he disapproved.

 

~*~

 

It might have been two days or maybe the better part of a week, Dorian had lost track of time. He’d visited the brothel Alexius had found him in all these years ago. After avoiding the place and its memories for all this time, it seemed oddly fitting. He felt thrown back into this younger self as if no time had passed in between. After the confrontation with his father, after the Circle of Argent… As if Alexius could come in any moment, no day older, and get him to come with him, home to Livia and Felix. Had Dorian changed at all? Had he grown, reshaped, had he become smaller from all the tears he’d shed? He didn’t know. There was only the numbness of wine, the warmth of bodies. Dorian didn’t remember the faces of the men he’d been with then and he wouldn’t remember these as well. He hoped they wouldn’t remember him.

 

Dorian wasn’t sure if he wished for Alexius to appear as he had before. It didn’t matter because it wouldn’t happen anyway. Alexius wouldn’t save Dorian from himself a second time, not now that Felix was the only one, the only thing that was worth saving. Not now that Alexius couldn’t even save himself. 

 

It was that train of thought that made Dorian startle, sober up, his anger scattered like a flock of birds. So easy to hurt someone when you are in pain, so easy to lash out. And Dorian knew Alexius, he knew what weight he carried and he’d still been so easily insulted. So fast to hear his father’s words in Alexius’ voice and run away like a sulking child. 

 

Dorian sat up and thought that this time it would have to be the other way around. This time around, Dorian would have to save Alexius. He owed him that much at least, if he couldn’t save Felix. 

 

It was suddenly easy to forgive Alexius for what he’d said. It was easy to get up, get out, and return to the house. If only it hadn’t been too late. If only the house hadn’t been as cold, as dark and as empty. If only it had been day, maybe in daylight one would have been in a state of mind more prone to keep going. If only there had been a message, a sign, anything.

 

Asking for the impossible and abandoning you when you didn’t deliver, that seemed to be the nature of paternal love, Dorian thought bitterly, desperately, while standing in Alexius’ office, mostly intact, but with obvious empty spots where their research was missing.   
Then Dorian thought: You’re ungrateful, you never deserved anything Alexius gave you anyway. And he returned to where he came from.

 

~*~

 

The son of Lord Ulio Abrexis was named Ulio as well. This was the first reason everybody referred to him as ‘the son of Lord Ulio Abrexis’ or ‘Abrexis’ son’. The second reason was that while Abrexis’ son wasn’t all that young anymore he hadn’t achieved a lot on his own and some people wanted to remind him of it. The third reason was that while these people might respect Lord Ulio Abrexis, they wanted to distance themselves from his son, who was infamous for being a great lay and also a notorious blackmailer.

 

Dorian had always thought that Ulio the younger was physically attractive, and the sheer amount of outrageous rumors and lewd gossip he featured in might have been intriguing. It was just that Dorian had made the mistake of actually talking to the man on one occasion and had found him to be a dreadfully dull and utterly repugnant person. There was no charm to his advances, no subtlety to his grandstanding, neither warmth nor discretion to his mentioning of former lovers. Greed and narcissism and the amiability of a varghest. Vain and flawed Dorian might be, but he’d always thought he deserved better than that.

 

Showed what he knew. Dorian never remembered the exact progress of events. He had been at the brothel, there had been a lot of drinks, that had gone on for a while. Then Ulio had been there, they had talked, Dorian didn’t remember about what. They went somewhere else, then somewhere else again. Most of it was familiar the way things are in a dream. Not that there were many disreputable dives Dorian hadn’t been to at least once before. Then they were in a private home, Ulio’s house and there was never really time to think about Alexius or Felix and where they were or what was happening to them or anything really, no time to question why he was there, and with Ulio of all people. 

 

In the end he woke up to light and shouting and movement, a blinding pain in his head and nausea. Nothing really made sense. He was hit by sleeping gas, and the last thing he noticed was being carried down a flight of stairs before he came to on a ship.


	3. Chapter 3

Dorian, while a more than decent swimmer, had never really taken to the sea. Unfortunately he’d grown up in Qarinus, one of the seven major port cities around the Nocen Sea that were the heart of the Tevinter Imperium (eight if you ignored the destruction of most civilian infrastructure and still counted Alam). His family’s ties to the cities of Minrathous and Asariel as well as his somewhat colorful course of education meant that he had traveled across the Nocen Sea from a young age and more often than he would have liked. While other people would stand on board trying to catch a glimpse of Seheron across the Ventosus Straits and fear for their safety while circumnavigating the notoriously rough and potentially Qunari-infested waters around the Eyes of Nocen or the southern cape of Seheron, Dorian would be too sick to care and only praying for the journey to end. 

 

There was no real cure for seasickness, magical or otherwise because, as his father liked to remind him, it was not a real illness. Dorian had been reassured on more than one occasion by well-meaning sailors that it would abate on its own after three days. Ironically that was about the amount of time it took to sail from Qarinus to any of the cities around the Nocen sea, so Dorian had never experienced this promised phenomenon firsthand. Not to say that it had always been this bad: When the weather had been clement and Dorian had been allowed to be on deck and as close to the bow as possible he had been fine. 

 

Now he was locked up under deck with a splitting headache, a beast of a hangover and the biting taste of magebane in this mouth. He half remembered someone telling him that he would be brought to his father in Qarinus. How reassuring. And all that after Dorian hadn’t set foot on a ship for almost a decade. He wished he was dead. Wanting a drink more than anything else while knowing one would be unable to keep it down anyway was just the humiliating icing on top of a calamitous cake.

 

~*~

 

The first week was terrible, trapped in his bedroom by a lingering illness, uneasy sleep interrupted by whispering voices. Nobody to talk to but his father’s slaves who tended to him, but had no interest or permission to linger in his room. The door was locked and warded. Everything seemed lifeless. The garden beyond his windows could as well have been a scenery painted on cardboard for how real it seemed to Dorian. A grey mist was creeping into his thoughts, diverting his focus, draining him of all energy. It took him days that seemed like weeks until he thought to himself that this wasn’t right, that something was wrong. The thought echoed no feeling, no dread, not even interest. 

 

Dorian’s attention drifted to the sigil painted on the canopy above his bed. It was almost as old as him and still working. A manifestation of his parents’ will to protect him from anything beyond the veil. And still he heard whispers whenever he closed his eyes. Something was near, stalking, lurking. 

 

His dreams seemed more real than the waking world. He dreamed that his mother was sitting next to his bed, her hand soft and cool on his forehead.  
“Did I ever tell you about my uncle?” she asked, her words lacking some of her usual precise articulation.  
“You never told me, but I read something about him. Somewhere. I forgot.” Dorian sat up, her hand slipping from his head and settling into her lap as she sat back in her chair. Her eyes reflected some light in the dim surroundings, wet with tears. Her black hair was open. Dorian had never seen her hair open. He’d never seen her cry.

 

“It’s a secret,” she whispered.   
“What happened?” Dorian found himself whispering as well. He’d always wondered.  
His mother hiccupped, or laughed, or sobbed, he couldn’t tell in the encroaching darkness. Her voice was very quiet. “They took his portraits off the walls, such a shame. He was so beautiful, everyone said so.”  
Dorian had leaned closer towards her and was almost sitting on the edge of the bed now. “Why?”  
A considering hum, then: “He was trapped in a room without food, it was a terrible accident.”

 

Dorian made to lean back again. He startled when her hand grabbed his. He tried to pull free, to get back to the center of the bed, as close as possible to the shimmering sigil. The hand held him fast and he struggled in vain before freezing in terror.

 

“You know that,” she said, talking fast now, her words running together until they were nearly unintelligible. “That was what you read, such an odd accident. How could a mage of his caliber be trapped in a room for so long, in a house full of family and servants? Wouldn’t someone hear him shout for help, wouldn’t they hear his voice, his fists on the door, his nails scratching-”

 

“Stop!” Dorian ground out through his teeth, jerking his hand free and falling back on his pillow, breathing hard, suddenly awake, his head pounding, his ears ringing, alone in an empty room. 

 

~*~

 

“I cannot understand why you would do any of it,” Dorian’s father said after he arrived in Qarinus, from where he sat across from Dorian at a silent dinner table. Dorian could only look at him and feel terrible. Ill and tired and hollowed out to a lifeless husk. He looked down at the food on the plate before him, perfectly cooked and beautifully arranged, unappetizing and untouched.   
Why indeed. In hindsight, letting Abrexis take him anywhere was stupid. Not worth it, certainly. Not terrible enough to regret it either, except for the way Halward Pavus now looked at him. Except for the way Dorian was back in his childhood home after managing to stay away for ten years, how all good memories left to him were now tainted by this defeat.

 

Or another why: Why would someone intelligent do stupid things? Dorian had never been able to put words to it, not when talking to his father. But maybe it came down to this: Where Halward Pavus saw the heir of his house, Dorian saw nothing. Death was everywhere and what was any of it worth in the end? What was the point if people just died or left or turned their backs on you? How could anyone stand to feel that lonely? 

 

“What would you have me do?” Dorian asked monotonously, not because he wanted to know – he knew already – but because the silence and his father’s disapproval were too pressing like this, too all-emcompassing. Anything specific would hurt less.

 

Halward was quiet for a moment. Maybe he was surprised that Dorian invited his opinion, something he hadn’t done in a dozen years or more, maybe because he had to chose from a myriad of grievances, from a myriad of Dorian’s personal flaws. “Get rid of this childish rebellion and grow up. You’re still young, a scandal like this is unfortunate, but-”

 

“That’s your answer?” Dorian interrupted calmly. “Pretending that nothing happened. Doing as I should.”  
“That’s how life works.”  
Dorian was too tired to answer.

 

~*~

 

Another dream, this time Dorian was sitting in the atrium of their house by the lake. It was night, the stars above distant and bright, none of the moons in the sky to outshine them, the house surrounding him silent and dark. He could make out the fountain in the middle, with its snake heads spitting water towards the center. 

 

“The term double life is misleading; the two parts don’t even make a whole,” a former lover of Dorian’s intoned, and then repeated it over and over again, eerie and broken.  
“I had almost forgotten you,” Dorian whispered to himself.

 

The man stopped and smiled. “We all need to compromise, in politics as well as in all other aspects of life. Otherwise, what will we reap? Chaos and anarchy.”  
“Were you always that old? I remember you being annoyingly patronizing, but did you always have that many grey hairs? Maybe it’s just the light.”  
“What you want, it’s not normal.”  
“I’m ever so aware, believe me.”

 

“Don’t be silly, Dorian. You’re still young, but you will see.”  
“Maker, what have I been thinking when I took up with you? Never mind, don’t answer that.” Dorian swatted a hand at him and he melted into a mirror image of Dorian himself.  
“Well, that is an improvement,” Dorian drawled.  
“You’re not so bad yourself,” the demon answered with a smirk.  
“So, what kind of demon are you?”  
“I am Truth.”  
Dorian barked a laugh. “Seriously? Why am I not believing you?”

 

The demon wearing his face smiled. “Because you hide from the truth like a frightened child hiding under blankets so the monsters can’t find it. Because you are weak and you lost your way, stumbling through the darkness. You will never find what you are looking for. You should just stop, it doesn’t exist. How can you justify wasting your life trying to change the world instead of changing yourself? So prideful and selfish. How many chances in life have you blown, how many people hurt by being a useless burden? You only care for your own pleasure, for your own happiness. What lies have you told yourself to escape all duties and responsibilities? Only so you could feel you were right when everybody knows you’re wrong.”

 

~*~

 

“I let you do as you pleased for ten years. You must admit that you haven’t a lot to show for it,” Halward Pavus said over another dinner, ending one of his monologues.

 

Dorian wasn’t listening, instead he picked at his food, wished there was wine with it. The quiet that descended upon them got his attention however. He did not feel like saying anything at all, but the silence was grating on him and if all else failed, he could always fall back on manners. “Pardon, you were saying?”  
His father shook his head. “What are you planning to do now?”  
Dorian shrugged. He needed to find Felix, but where to start? They could be anywhere in Thedas by now.

 

“Don’t ask again about Gereon and his son," his father said, guessing correctly what was on his mind "I will find them and if there is anything to be done I will deal with whatever it is. You don’t need to worry about that. Think about your future. Do you want to stay an unimportant scholar in Minrathous? Don’t you have higher ambitions? All I ever hear from you is what you don’t want to do.”  
“I want to not have these problems,” Dorian said through gritted teeth. “Is this what you want to hear? Of course I don’t. Who in their right mind would? But I’m not being the way I am to spite you. I’m not caring for the people I care for so you have more work. I didn’t choose any of this.”

 

“There might be ways to… change things,” Halward said, his voice atypically hesitant.   
When Dorian looked up at his face he wouldn’t meet his eyes. Things… Dorian clenched his fists to stop his hands from shaking. “I’m not feeling well, if you will excuse me.” He went to his room, one of his fathers bodyguards shadowing him until he closed the door behind him. Tears blurred his sight. He wanted to scream, to rage, to set the whole house ablaze, but his voice was trapped in his throat and his knees wouldn’t support him. And his magic seemed so far away, out of reach, out of touch. What was going on?

 

~*~

 

He dreamed that night that he was walking through a city made of ice; the familiar spires of Minrathous gleaming overhead in an alien blue twilight, all jagged edges and impossible angles. Before him a row of sculptures, surrounded by trees and flowerbeds, an endless succession of Archons looking out to the sea, all of them now covered in a layer of pale crystals. Such an odd picture, Dorian thought. So strange, how his breath fogged in front of his face with every exhale.

 

There was the fig tree he had been sitting underneath with Felix so many times. It was bearing fruits like it would in late summer, before the poor would be allowed to pick them, overripe, cracking open like bloody maws and drawing insects. There was no vinegar smell though, no humming of wasps. The tree was frozen like everything else. When Dorian reached out to touch one of the low hanging leaves it was brittle and cold, falling to the ground at his feet. His gaze followed it to the ground, and there lay the insects, too, lifeless and still. And beneath them, beneath his feet, beneath the whole city, transparent ice. The depths of a frozen ocean, giant shapes moving below. 

 

“Don’t move,” Felix said from where he was sitting underneath the tree. Had he been there the whole time? His face was drawn, his skin was paler than Dorian had ever seen it, his lips blue, his eyes empty. “Don’t misstep. The ice will crack and you will fall. It will be cold. Do you see them moving below? They will feed on your warm blood. It will never be enough to sate them, but they do not care.”

 

“Felix?” Dorian made to move towards him, but the ice underneath his feet made a loud noise, like the sound of a string wound to tight and snapping under that strain. It echoed into the distance, causing more noises, groaning and crackling, causing the shapes underneath to take note, to swim closer and circle like sharks. Dorian hesitated, froze. “Is that really you?” He asked Felix. But it wasn’t really Felix, was it?

 

Whatever it was, it did not seem inclined to answer anyway. “You have grown so much. When you are young and small and insignificant, for a while the ice may hold you. The city is beautiful from here, isn’t it?” A sigh. “But you’ve grown too old for these games, Dorian. Never stepping on the cracks in the pavement, that’s not going to cut it anymore.”

 

Dorian was afraid and cold and he missed Felix so much it was hurting with every breath he took. “What in the void are you talking about?”  
“You know, Dorian. You are betrayed and alone and lost. You know that.”  
“Why are you saying that? Where are you? Felix, please!” There were tears running down his face, he could feel them, because they too were cold, sticking to his lashes and clinging to his cheeks. 

 

Felix shook his head, getting up from the ground. He put his weight on the tree trunk, rose carefully, slowly like an old man, each movement painful. The few steps it took him to reach Dorian seemed to take forever. He was panting with exertion, his voice rough. “They’re coming for you. You need to stop hiding. You need to run. You know that.”

 

“I know,” Dorian admitted. “But it hurts.”  
Felix looked at him with unblinking eyes. “That’s good,” he said, sounding sad and proud. “When it stops hurting you know they have won.”

 

~*~

 

Day followed after day. Dorian slept a lot, but never enough to overcome the bone-deep exhaustion that had seeped into his very being. He thought of the Circle of Argent, of how he had been punished by spending days on end locked up alone in his room. Why had he been punished? Speaking out of turn? Loitering? Daydreaming? He couldn’t quite remember, something petty and inconsequential no doubt. 

 

It had seemed so terrible to him then, the confinement like a physical ache, something small and easy to bear in the beginning that became all encompassing suffering as the days passed. Time and silence were cruel weapons. And still, now he didn’t feel the same feverish tension, or did he? And even if he did, it was as if he had no energy left to even pace, much less think about escape. He’d just lie on his bed drifting in and out of sleep, dreams and memories intermingling. 

 

He thought of Gereon’s words: The most important thing is that you don’t let yourself down. What do you think lies down this path? What a waste of such a brilliant mind. He thought of Felix and he believed without a doubt that he was dead by now, that he must be.

 

A knock on his door and he turned his head in time for it to open. “You’re to come downstairs,” the servant said.  
Dorian rose slowly, wondering why. Beyond the window everything was drenched in bright midday light. Surely his father hadn’t returned yet for the evening. He didn’t ask. For whatever reason his father had given them, the servants didn’t talk to Dorian.

 

Of all the people in Tevinter Dorian would never have guessed that it would be Lady Livia Herathinos waiting for him in the small salon the servant escorted him to. Maybe he should have. After all, who else but his erstwhile fiancée would be an acceptable visitor in his father’s eyes? Who else would be in a better place in these trying times to, as the Soporati would say, rub it in. Or maybe his father had hoped despite all reason that Dorian would change his mind after all. Maybe this was a last chance, something to soothe his father’s conscience. That was likely.

 

A part of Dorian could think these things, cool and cynical. That part of Dorian could understand the reasoning behind it. There was abstract though, other people’s motivations and his own motivations, all only a part of a story. History. What would they say about this in ten years, fifty years, a hundred? Who would be the villain? Would the truth be known? And what even was the truth? Would it matter to anybody? Likely not. That part of Dorian could be vaguely amused about the absurdity of his life, about the way this ‘Dorian’ thought about things that should by all rights disturb him and didn’t feel anything and didn’t think anything wrong with that. These thoughts were like spindly insects skittering over water. Nothing sank in, nothing changed underneath.

 

There was a part of Dorian that burned with rage, that was petrified with fear, wrecked with nightmares, frozen with betrayal. A trapped animal, livid and mad, desperately trying to escape. It sapped him of his energy, left him hollow-eyed and tired. It sank deeper every day. If only everything would end.  
Still, there were manners to fall back on. That was as easy as breathing. Or it should be. Well, he wasn’t at his best, he knew that. Breathing wasn’t that easy either these days. Livia would have to put up with it or depart, Dorian didn’t honestly care which. 

 

She put up with it, she was… different than he remembered. Grown up, maybe. More confident and kinder for it. They talked, just some witticisms, not even very good ones. He was off-beat and she was concerned. Nonetheless, it felt so good to talk to another person, he lost track of what he was saying.

 

When she gave him Felix’ letters it was like being hit by lightning. The thing inside him was raging, pacing, throwing its weight around as if it would change anything. And maybe it did. Suddenly, it was all too close, too terrible, too sad. How could he do this to him? How could he? What kind of father would do this to his son? What did he do to be treated like something broken that needed to be taken apart and sifted through for the parts his father thought acceptable, only to be put together into something different, something that looked like him and talked like him, but was numb and hollow and- What for? How cruel. How ugly.

 

There was a part of Dorian that would always love his father, a part that wanted to understand why and could not stop prodding at the sore spot where his admiration for his father had been, this bone-deep need to never disappoint him. There was a part of Dorian that hated his father; that was hardened by now and would never forgive him. The problem was that they were the same. There was only one Dorian, all these disparate thoughts and feelings tangled together and drawing him in different directions, cutting away at each other and tearing at him. 

 

Dorian had lost his footing, he was sinking, drowning. But was that really a certainty? Wasn’t it only one possibility, only one permutation in an infinity of choices and coincidences? Dorian had been set on this path, but nothing of it meant anything. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he had spent too much time with Felix, too much time contemplating death, but life was so short and what was any of it worth when you had to question yourself at every point?  
Maybe Dorian was as selfish and spoiled as his father thought. But his father had never asked him to compromise, had only ever told him to conform. 

 

Instead of trying to find a way that they could both be happy and live with, it was always just Dorian who needed to change and fulfill his duties even if it went against the very grain of his being. Was it fair that he was made to feel that if he just conformed everything would be fine? That it was all his fault? 

 

~*~

 

“Dorian,” one of the letters read (but they all sounded similar), “I worry about you. At this date I did not receive any answer to the letters I send to you, so I’m writing to anyone who might be able to find you and pass them on. If you simply have not forgiven my father for disappearing in the manner he did, I cannot fault you, but I do not believe that you would refuse to answer my letters because of such a thing. Nonetheless, know that I am sorry for leaving you, even if it was not my choice. I wish I could return to Tevinter. I fear something terrible has happened to you. Please contact me if you can to ease my mind. 

 

“My father took me to Orlais, the Maker-forsaken south-western deserts of it to be exact. We never stay in one place for long, but we pass through Val Royeaux with some regularity to contact agents of whoever he is working for. Can you imagine him secretive and suspicious even against me? I swear I do not know him any longer. The things that are going on and the people he works with... I have little clue about most of it, I have been very weak for most of our travels, but all of it makes me uneasy. If you ask my father it is merely a treasure hunt, he’s convinced he will find something that will save me in the blighted sands of the Western Approach. But I’ve heard talk of a cult that unearthed ancient ruins and magical secrets. These ruins at least I have seen with my own eyes. Is it merely some mania that will not have any ill effect or a dangerous conspiracy? 

 

“If there is such a thing as a cure how am I to believe there wouldn’t be a high price to pay for it? These times seem dark and threatening to me. I do not know if this feeling is real or if it is the shadow of the blight hanging over me. As you might know, there is a war raging here in the South. My father calls it a revolution, but however much I support the freedom of our fellow mages, this unrest has long become an excuse to commit all kinds of atrocities, a civil war that destroys everything in its wake. I wish nothing more than to hear from you one last time before it is too late. You can send letters for me to the bookshop of Verne in Val Royeaux. It is well known and I befriended the owner so I hope anything you send will reach me. I will not ask you to come here, I believe it is dangerous and I’m not sure what you could do to help, but know that I miss you.   
Your friend,  
Felix”

 

Dorian had grown up in a world that was splendid, but right underneath the surface dragons lurked. Duty and the weight of expectations he had always understood. But underneath that? These layers of terrible secrets and unspeakable truths? Dangerous to place your trust in anyone. Dorian had trusted his parents, had spent his childhood surrounded by their wards and sigils. How subtle the workings of such things. How they could protect dreams and focus thought. How they could be used for altogether more sinister purposes. 

 

Not everything his father did and said was manipulation, some of it was sincere, Dorian was sure of it. But what did it matter when they had come to a point were he couldn’t tell one from the other? When he couldn’t believe that whatever his father was doing was really in his best interest. There was only one thing left to do. Dorian pressed his arm to his chest, feeling the paper of Felix’ letters underneath his clothes, grounding and real. 

 

Back in his room Dorian lay down on his bed and contemplated the sigil above. It didn’t look different than he remembered it from his childhood, but maybe what he was seeing wasn’t what was truly there. An illusion? Changes this significant should show not only in the writing but in the whole lay-out. After all, everything it had been repurposed to… what end? If only he could see. And was it connected to the despair demon that haunted Dorian’s dreams or was that just a coincidence? What would result of destroying it? 

 

It was a puzzle Dorian might have been tempted to solve. Picking it apart to learn what it was, how it had been done. Obsessing over what it meant, how far his father would go to keep Dorian in this house. But even his curiosity had been tempered. It didn’t matter. What mattered was leaving. Leaving right now, without alerting the servants, before his father would return in the evening. 

 

~*~

 

Dorian knew the way. The hardest part was getting up and gathering clean clothes without dwelling on the question of what he would do after. After leaving the house, after leaving the city, the country, after finding Felix. He pushed these thoughts away, ignored the discouraging whispers, and went down two flights of stairs into the bath. As he suspected, the servants shadowed him, but did not follow him into the room.

 

Their private baths did not compare to the grand public baths of the Tevene cities in terms of size, but same as them the floor of the room had two layers so it could be heated from beneath: A construct of large square marble plates above small pillars of rough bricks. There was space enough in between that a small person could move around to clean without the marble plates having to be lifted. Dorian tried to lift one of the plates using his magic, but his connection to the fade proved as fickle and wayward as it had been every day since his father brought him back to Qarinus. Too dangerous to handle something that heavy this way, no sense in trying to move the stone with just physical strength either. 

 

Instead he searched for the access point. He found it at the bottom of a utility room that lay hidden to one side. A few steps led down and there it was: A door slightly less broad than Dorian’s shoulders and of approximately the same height. Behind it darkness. He cursed under his breath and summoned a veilfire, which appeared only at the second attempt, seeming to flicker more than was usual. It took him a moment to get his bearings and then even longer to crawl toward the hatchway that lay at the lowest point in the ground, right at the center of the room above. It was shut by a round metal door, latched from the inside and warded against intruders. Where it met the ground it was surrounded by a small groove filled with water to ward off the smell coming up from the sewers while also serving as a drain. Dorian hesitated before opening the latch, worrying about the ward. Like the sigil in his room, he could see it, but not make sense of it. It had not been set by his father, it felt too old, that was about all Dorian could tell. 

 

The house had been built by a Thalrassian, his mother’s family, and Dorian’s father was unlikely to even know about this exit. Dorian had grown up here because his mother had never wanted to live anywhere else than Qarinus, but his father had spent at least as much time with his politics in Minrathous and his estates in Asariel as he did here. He had never been overly interested in the martial history of the city and the role of his wife’s family in it. Not that Dorian thought he’d never heard about it, it just wasn’t usually in the forefront of his mind. Dorian in contrast had always loved the stories about sieges, conspiracies and secret tunnels. 

 

If this ward was still here from the last Thalrassian who used that exit... that was a long time ago for a ward not to wear off. So probably done with blood to ward off anyone but members of the family. In which case Dorian should be able to pass it. And indeed when he cautiously touched the latch, nothing happened. Prying open the hatch in the confines of the low ceiling and the surrounding pillars turned out to be tricky, Dorian’s fingers slipping on the slick metal, the latch as well as the hinges rusty and unwilling to move. He was sweating from the effort as well as anxiety when he finally had it open and dropped himself down the few feet into the tunnel below. 

 

~*~

 

Dorian followed the sewers up, because he did not know where the tunnel would end, but it had been built to flee away from the sea and further inland, so it seemed more likely to him that he would find a way out in that direction. He walked for what felt like hours without being able to tell the time, uphill and stooping in the low tunnel, his feet drenched in cold water and slipping on the treacherous ground. The further he went, the more the smell lessened, until the tunnel ended in what looked to be a natural cave. 

 

His veilfire had grown more steady the further he walked and now he held his hand up over his head, making the light shine brighter until it illuminated a high domed ceiling beset with hundreds of fragile looking blinding white stalactites which were mirrored in the smooth water on the ground. The room was very beautiful, a beauty that could only have been heightened had there been an opening in sight. Dorian walked around for a while, looking at every wall and into every nook, but he found nothing. If there had been a path carved into the stone it had long since been overgrown by the smooth lime stone that dripped from the ceiling. Maybe the entrance to the cave had collapsed at some point. 

 

The thought of climbing all the way down again, of returning to the house if only to pass by underneath, did not sit well with Dorian. He was tired, and thinking that he thought that it might well be night now, and if it was, waiting a few hours for the light of day might help him find a way out after all. So he decided to stay. He put on the clean clothes he had brought with him, pulled on the wide robes he had worn before against the chill, and sad down in a dry corner. Instead of sleeping he read Felix’ letters again and again. 

 

It didn’t seem to Dorian as if he had slept at all, but as if between one blink of his eyes and the next a pale light appeared in the water a few feet from where he was sitting. He sprung up from the ground, his bones aching, but his head clearer than it had been for weeks. He looked at the light, how it grew brighter and more distinct. There was an opening underneath the clear water, illuminated by the light of dawn. Dorian laughed, giddy with the discovery and walked into the water. It was cold enough to sting, but he didn’t care, he dived the short way until he reemerged sputtering and shivering on the other side in a small pond that was overgrown with thorny shrubs. 

 

Dorian looked around, unsure where he was and where he should go from here. He was wet and cold, had nothing but the clothes on his back, and even these somewhat worse for wear. He didn’t know what day it was, but he was standing in the sunlight somewhere south of Qarinus, fleeing his home and family, on the way to find his only friend at the other end of the world. It was ridiculous. It was fantastical. This was the moment Dorian felt his future start to exist again, uncertain but real.

**Author's Note:**

> So... I don't even know what that is any more. If you have an idea, please let me know.


End file.
